1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a knock down filing cabinet which may be conveniently shipped in its knocked down condition and may readily be assembled by a relatively inexperienced user.
2. Description of the Prior Art
One of the prices paid for the increased sophistication of society is the generation of increased volumes of paperwork which must be stored by responsible persons for periodic reference thereto in the conduct of caring for personal and business assets alike. The burden of properly compiling and storing such paperwork for convenient reference thereto is significantly eased by establishing an orderly and convenient filing system. The advantage of a filing system is well recognized in the business world and such advantages have long been known to justify the expense of acquiring and maintaining adequate filing cabinets or shelves. However, many consumers have perceived the expense of acquiring and maintaining file cabinets for storage of personal documents and records as being insufficient to justify the considerable expense of the file cabinet itself.
Consequently, there exists a need for a relatively inexpensive file cabinet which can be made available to the consumer at a relatively inexpensive price so that price of such file cabinets will fall within the price range making them available to consumers of even the most modest means. It has been recognized that file cabinets can be fabricated from sheet metal by mass production techniques at a relatively economical cost. In fact, such manufacturing techniques have rendered such fabrication so economical that the cost of manufacture in many instances may be no greater than the cost of transporting the completed cabinet from the place of manufacture to a remote retail outlet. Accordingly, it is recognized that, if the cost of transportation, which makes up a great portion of the total cost paid by the consumer, could be substantially reduced, the resultant savings to the consumer would be appreciable. Since the intended end use of a file cabinet dictates that the cabinet itself must be of such a character as to define a relatively voluminuous interior, the assembled file cabinet itself must occupy a rather significant volume of space. As a consequence, the transportation costs of shipping a lot of fully assembled file cabinets is driven up by the sheer bulk of the cabinets themselves, rather than merely the combined weight of a lot of such cabinets.
It has long been recognized that a great cost savings would be realized if the component parts of a file cabinets could be stacked in juxtaposition for shipping to the retail outlet for sale and subsequent assembly. Such cabinets so shipped for subsequent assembly by the consumer has become known in the marketplace as knock down or K-D furniture or equipment. Such knock down cabinets, while offering the advantage of reduced transportation costs, have received less than enthusiastic consumer reception because of the perceived, and sometimes justifiably so, difficulties experienced by the average consumer in endeavoring to assemble such knock down cabinets.
The reputation amongst the consuming public of knock down furniture and cabinets has suffered from the fact that such cabinets have included panels manufactured from pressed wood or other relatively soft materials which have proven relatively ineffective in serving to receive and retain the threaded shanks of fastener screws supplied therewith for use in assembling the panels together. Consequently, the consumer has typically been faced with the problem that one or more fastening screws which, when tightened, strip the threads in the panel receiving the shank thereof thus necessitating the consumer being less than satisfied with a cabinet having one or more fasteners missing or requiring him or her to dissassemble the partially assembled cabinet for return to the retailer for a money refund or replacement and a hope of better success in assembling the replacement cabinet. The retailer must then either stand behind the product or incur the ill will generated by a dissatisfied customer, a dilemma which products either a financial burden or loss of a customer and consequent complaints in the marketplace.
Even when the consumer does succeed in overcoming the obstacles of knock down assembly, the prior art cabinets have typically left the heads of the fastening screws exposed thus leaving a relatively unsightly appearance, particularly when relatively inexperienced do-it-yourselfers leave the heads of such screws marred and battered from less than expert manipulation of the screwdriver used during assembly.
Efforts to provide satisfactory knock down cabinets have led to the proposal of panels which incorporate inter fitting tongue and groove arrangements, with or without interlocking angular brackets which slide together during assembly. Interfitting brackets of this type are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,784,272 to Schreiber. Such interfitting brackets, while satisfactory for their intended use, suffer the shortcoming that in file cabinets which may carry a relatively heavy load of paper documents, the inter fitting brackets, not providing the tight fit of a screw fastener, will result in a relatively wobbly and insecure final construction which has proven unsatifactory in use.
Efforts to provide knock down assembly has also led to the proposal of corner posts having hinges mounted along one side thereof with one flange of such hinge being adapted for receipt of a screw fastener which may mount a molding formed with a groove for receipt of the marginal edge of an associate panel. Such an arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,281,883 to Zacky. This arrangement, while being satifactory for some display cases and the like, is relatively expensive to fabricate and results in a final construction which does not exhibit the integrity of a cabinet assembled by means of screw fasteners without hinge elements interposes.
Other efforts have led to the proposal of cabinets including corner posts formed with orthogonally opening grooves for receipt of the marginal edges of associated panels. Such an arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,096 to Perl. This arrangement, while satisfactory for some modular construction, would require some additional fastening elements in order to provide the necessary rigidity and integrity required for a file cabinet intended to store a heavy load of documents and material.
Appliance cabinets have been proposed which incorporate door panels formed with turned back marginal edges which are then bent perpendicular to the body of the panel to form a flange which is formed with a bore for receipt of a fastener socket. A mating panel is then formed with a perpendicularly turned flange projecting co-extensively with the first mentioned flange and formed with a bore for receipt therethrough of a shank of a fastener which is inserted in the socket to leave the fastener head exposed to the rear. An appliance cabinet of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,229,921 to Schell. However, such an arrangement, while being satisfactory for the doors of dishwasher cabinets and the like, would be unsatisfactory for file cabinets of the present invention where the cabinet is typically exposed on four sides thus making it desirable that the head of the fastener be concealed within the confines within the cabinet itself.
It has been proposed that appliance cabinets incorporate fastener nuts held non-rotationally in position for receipt of a fastener screw inserted through a mating panel. Such an arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,003,613. While satisfactory for applications where the head of the screw is to be exposed, such an arrangement would not be satisfactory for the file cabinet of the present invention where it is desirable to conceal the screw head.
Other objects and features of the invention will become aparent from consideration of the following description taken in connection with the accompany drawings.